


Dusty Corners

by sugarspuncoeurls



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Humor, Post-Canon, Sensuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:08:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24835120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugarspuncoeurls/pseuds/sugarspuncoeurls
Summary: Never did he imagine he would have to build a house for his wife to live in, but there is a romance to it that he cannot deny. The two of them making a home, together, one dusty corner at a time.
Relationships: Hien Rijin/Warrior of Light
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	Dusty Corners

**Author's Note:**

> Whoda thought house-cleaning (bathroom-cleaning specifically) would serve as good inspiration? Might be the fastest I've ever written a fic. Also my bathroom is sparkling. Absolutely domestic, absolutely tooth-rotting. Beware of a little spice. Enjoy, and if you do, feel free to check out my tumblr side blog, linked through my main under the same name.
> 
> Side note: "Benibana" is Japanese for safflower.

“I hope you are aware that half the staff is complaining about there being nothing to do.”

Hien watches amusedly as she pauses, her hand freezing mid-swipe, her head tilting in that way that tells him she’s thinking. “The other half is worried that their work is somehow inadequate,” he continues.

She remains still for half a moment more before her hand resumes its task of wiping the baseboards. “Liar,” she says bluntly. “I spoke with them.”

Hien chuckles and approaches from the other end of the large hall, empty but for yellow shafts of sunlight shining through paper-screened windows, highlighting recently-lain floorboards and dancing dust particles. She pays him little heed until he stops a mere two fulms away and crouches, his bare feet no doubt seen from her periphery. This time when she pauses, she looks up to acknowledge him.

Kami damn him but he’ll never tire of seeing that face. Even hidden as it is from the nose down with a white cloth. He smiles.

“What is it?” Odzaya asks, and his gaze goes to the thick purple eyebrow that rises in question of the slightly dazed look on his face. He merely smiles more widely, and finally, she abandons her work to lift a hand and pull the white cloth covering her mouth down. One corner of her full lips is quirked in curiosity like her brow.

“Do you have any idea how this looks?” he asks, indicating the cloth, the abandoned towel stained gray with dirt, and her place on the floor. “The queen of Doma, cleaning her own palace?”

That expressive eyebrow rises higher, as does the corner of her mouth. “I imagine the same way it looks to see the king of Doma outside rebuilding it?” Sitting back on her heels, Odzaya raises the same hand that lowered the cloth on her face to his, then higher, into his still-damp hair. It comes back into his sight shortly afterward, where he sees, trapped between the nails of her thumb and forefinger, a small splinter of wood. Most like it found its way there by way of one of the logs he’d hoisted onto his shoulders to transfer to the section of the castle stalls they’d been working on. He thought he’d successfully rid himself of the evidence.

Clearly, he hadn’t.

“You were saying?” She tilts her head further, and the smirk is full-blown now. He is distinctly reminded of those afternoons the Enclave guard convince her to spar with them; she mops the floor with them, naturally, and as she humbly bows before their laughing, panting forms strewn about the training grounds, there is always a victory-fueled sparkle in her dark, light-limned eyes, a small smile that reveals her enjoyment.

Hien sighs, knowing there is little he can do to deny his hypocrisy. “A fair point,” he concedes, then reaches out his hands. With a curious look, Odzaya slowly places her own in the cradle of his palms, and follows as he brings them both to their feet. “But you could at least work _with_ the staff, yes?” he suggests with a beseeching look.

“‘Tis not as if I do not have experience, Hien,” she lightly argues, accepting his touch as he runs a hand over the bandana holding her locs back from her face; the lack of her usual bangs reveals the white-scaled diadem framing her forehead, and he smiles at the rare sight of it. “I spent a year keeping the halls of Kugane Castle spotless, if you recall.”

“Kami forbid I ever forget that the legendary hero of the East and West was once a maid,” he jokes. “And occasional courtesan.” Odzaya snorts delicately.

“Of course you would remember _that_ part.”

“Of course,” he agrees wholeheartedly, and leans down to press a kiss against the large center scale of her crown. “Blessed were those who had the privilege of enjoying your no doubt delightful company.”

“Hm,” she intones, obviously in disagreement. When he leans back, she watches him with slightly narrowed eyes. “Is that what you would have me do instead, then? Dress up, paint my face, and serve you sake?”

The abrupt imagery temporarily stuns him. Too many a time has he gazed upon the woman before him and thought he’d never seen her more beautiful. At the climax of the Naadam, lit from below by the golden light of the ovoo. That same night, seated on a boulder of her make, framed by the stars as they bonded over shared dreams. Against the pitch-black and bloodstains of the Ghimlyt Dark, a single beacon of hope against the Empire’s advance.

The morning after their first night together, robed in nothing but quilts and the cloak of his arms, her dark skin supple and sweet against the harsh shine of dawn’s light.

All precious moments, every one. And yet there is nothing, he thinks, quite like the sight of her standing before him, clothed in her and his peoples’ finest, a vision of colored silks and furs, her hair curled and looped and adorned with jewels and blooms, her eyes seemingly aglow as her painted lips declared her intention to remain with him the rest of her days.

Three moons they’ve been married, and still the thought of her that day steals him of breath. Even now, as she looks up at him questioningly, he wonders what it would be like to see her in some semblance of that make once more.

Odzaya’s brow suddenly dips. “My gods but you are actually considering it.” And the utter _judgment_ in her tone brings him not only spiraling back to the present but into a fit of laughter as he uses his hold on her hands to pull her into his embrace.

“As if you can blame me!” Hien exclaims, planting another, firmer kiss to her forehead, then another to her scaled cheek.

“I can,” she insists, squirming halfheartedly. “I _am_.”

“Mmm,” he intones happily. “If you only had my memories, you would not be so quick to judge.”

“I am afraid to imagine,” she says, and slips herself out of his arms faster than he can think to attain a firmer hold. Before he knows it, she’s back on her knees, cloth over her nose and towel in hand. “Off with you,” she dismisses him easily, already returning to her wiping. “While you revel in fantasies that will never happen, I will be finishing these baseboards.”

 _Ouch._ He grins at her backside. “You’re getting rid of me?”

“You made your case,” she says, “then promptly lost it. Try again later, if you wish. Preferably when I am done.”

Gods, but she does have a mouth, however much she may deny it. Hien grins wider, hopelessly charmed. “How about this?” he begins, and kneels beside her once more. He looks around a moment before spotting the small pile of her cleaning supplies, and nabs another cloth. “How about I help you?”

Odzaya pauses once more, eyeing him. “You have already bathed,” gesturing to his clean robes and the low, tied-off tail of his hair. He shrugs.

“And I can again.” He gives her another beseeching look. “Consider it an apology for my hypocrisy.”

She huffs a laugh at that; he can see it in the sudden crinkling of her eyes as she shakes her head. “Fine,” she concedes, and points to the other end of the hall, apparently still teeming with dust. “Start there, if you would. We will meet in the middle.”

“Aye, ma’am,” he says, securing another cloth to his face, and then they fall into a companionable silence as the work resumes.

It is good work, he thinks, wiping his boards ‘til they gleam with gloss. Honest work, work that is messy but also blessedly clean. There is no need for blades or magic, no blood, no impending sense of danger or constant fear for loss of life. Perhaps that is why he seeks it out. With the Enclave a bustling, ever-growing hub once more, they’ve finally set their sights on repairing the palace, and doubtless, there is a special sense of fulfillment that comes with re-laying the foundation of his home with his own hands, brick by brick, beam by beam.

Something special, too, he knows, taking a momentary break, in sharing that duty with a loved one. His gaze finds Odzaya as if by habit, her own attentions still occupied, and he smiles. Never did he imagine he would have to build a house for his wife to live in, but there is a romance to it that he cannot deny. The two of them making a home, one wooden beam – or dusty corner – at a time.

His heart grows full, and remains that way as they steadily shuffle their way to one another. By the time they meet in their middle, it is fit to bursting, so enamored is he with her focus, with the dedication she gives to every inch of board, with the way she takes her face close to make sure the shine of the wood is true, heedless of the way it sticks her rear high into the air, her spiked tail flicking with satisfaction when she decides she can move on. Finally, after nearly a bell in silence, she settles back on her thighs and pulls the cloth from her face. “There,” she breathes with a victorious smile. She looks at him, poised right next to him, as she predicted. “All do-”

He claims her lips before she can finish the word, his body drawn to hers as if by orbit. One of his hands finds her face, cupping her cheek. The other finds her hip, her waist, splays its fingers on the small of her back under her braided locs, and pulls her into him in return. The noise she makes is quiet and surprised, her fingers rising to and clasping his shoulders; he can feel one hand still gripping her towel reflexively. Softening his kiss, he shifts his palm from her cheek to the back of her head, stroking his fingers across the fanned tips of her horns along the way, and revels when she shudders at the sensation. She sighs and he swallows the sound, and all at once her form melts into his hold, her mouth opening with the tender coax of his tongue along the seam of her lips. The towel drops from her hand with a muffled plop to the floor and her arms encircle his shoulders, his neck, her fingers choosing instead to find purchase in his hair, reflexively tangling in thick black strands.

“Hien…” she whispers in the single breath that they part, and he opens his eyes to see hers aglow, safflower-red and ringed with fire.

“My dearest,” he answers in low tones, trailing kisses along her jaw, her cheek, the center crest on her forehead and the smaller one on the bridge of her nose. “Wondrous wife.” He swallows her sigh again, this one heavier, catching on the end with a whimper that warms him through and through. Her fingers tighten in his hair, a gentle but insistent tug that makes his breath hitch.

Odzaya murmurs something between them, an attempt nearly lost around the dance of their tongues. “Mm?” he utters on their next breath, lost to his senses as he angles his lips back to her jaw and this time downward, seeking to mouth the intricate plates decorating her neck.

“Hien,” she gasps, and the sound of the his name is so intoxicating to his ears that he cannot help but listen.

“Yes,” he breathes in answer. “Yes, my star?”

She whimpers a second time. “You missed a spot.”

“Mmm,” he replies, placing an open-mouthed kiss to the skin near her collarbone, his fingers itching to loosen the clothing at her neck and reveal more for his eyes and lips…

And then her words register. Hien pauses, his breath puffing hotly on her collar, and leans back to meet her gaze. Odzaya’s eyes still glisten – as do her lips – though this time, there is a definite humor in their depths, fighting for supremacy with the heat. Her smile, when he acknowledges it as well, is just this side of impish.

“I what?” he asks, and she actually removes one of her hands from his hair and points to a spot over his shoulder.

“Over there, near the doorway.”

He succeeds – just barely – at keeping his mouth from falling open, and turns his head to see the corner she is indicating. He turns back shortly after. “Are you serious?” he asks.

“You said you would help me,” she explains, and toys with the stray locks of his hair hanging over his forehead. Her smile widens, and the kittenish nature of it matures into full-blown coeurl. “I have expectations.”

“I-of course you do,” he says, sighing himself for now entirely different reasons. He leans down to rest his head against hers. “You are a harsh taskmistress, Benibana,” he comments, smirking as the lit furnace between them dwindles down to warm embers.

“You knew this already,” she excuses, and relaxes back into his arms. By way of his eagerness, she is practically in his lap, and she makes herself comfortable, a deep hum of contentment coming from her throat as she absently rubs their foreheads together, the tender friction of her scales against his skin making him chuckle. Her fingers find his ears, gently cupping and rubbing as if they were horns. He laughs again, and coaxes her into another kiss.

“I did,” he agrees.

“You will fix your corner, then?” she presses.

“If you bathe with me afterward,” he extends. He grins. “To ensure I do not overlook any more damning evidence.”

“A king who cannot properly clean a floor or his person is very worrying, Hien,” Odzaya replies, her brow rising with a skepticism that belies the way her eyes and body warm at his invitation. Hien responds with another rub of their foreheads together, and a hand that travels innocuously from her back to her rear, softly squeezing until she sucks in a breath and her tail curls.

“‘Tis good I have a queen so competent, then, yes?” he breathes. “She has already proven she can do both.”

“Corner first,” she insists, pressing closer despite her assertion. His grin turns toothy.

“You have my word,” he promises, and slowly lowers them both to the gleaming floor of their home. “Every spot.”


End file.
